Software Provides Data Analytics to Teleradiology Program

By HospiMedica International staff writersPosted on 23 Nov 2011

A data analytics system provides users the ability to correlate data across healthcare information technology (IT) applications and act upon the analytics, which is critical to maintaining quality of care provided by the healthcare community to its growing customer base.

The US Veterans Health Administration’s (Washington DC, USA) National Teleradiology Program (VA-NTP) recently awarded a multiyear contract for comprehensive data analysis and reporting platform to Health Level, Inc. (Mountain View, CA, USA). The VA-NTP serves more than 30 VA Medical Centers across the United States and has a waiting list for its effective radiology diagnostic services.

With this new capability, VA-NTP staff and management can direct questions and visualize correlations between diverse parameters such as staffing levels, case mix, critical cases, revenue, and seasonal patterns. The project scope includes clinical, operational, and financial data for all staffing locations and customer sites across multiple time zones. Service performance reports for VA Medical Centers as well as staff metrics can be distributed confidentially and securely. This capability simplifies reporting, improves transparency, and continually ensures collaborative decisions between VA-NTP customers and staff.

“This selection by VA-NTP demonstrates the commitment to improve efficiency, outcomes, and financial performance through fact-based analytics to drive informed decisions,” according to Parag Paranjpe, chief executive officer of Health Level, Inc. “As the data set grows, VA-NTP will be able to mine the data for continuous quality improvement. This data set will also be available to all VA-NTP customers across the system for real-time analytics integrated with large volume of historical insight.”

VHA National Teleradiology Program (NTP) is a US clinical entity, established by the recommendation of the Teleradiology Workgroup and the chief consultant for diagnostic services to address the radiologist staffing shortage across the VA system, and to utilize the existing radiology workforce. The program is hosted by the VA Palo Alto HCS (PAHCS; CA, USA) and is currently headquartered in Menlo Park (CA, USA) with reading centers in three time zones.

Health Level is the industry’s first integrated real-time and multiyear correlation platform for clinical, operational, and financial data. Focusing on data analytics and reporting for hospitals and healthcare systems, Health Level’s goal to empower staff through user-friendly data analysis to improve transparency and efficiency.